No Iwo Jima- Formosa invaded instead ?

From wikipedia
The origins of the battle lie in the complex politics of the Pacific theater, in which operational control was divided between the South West Pacific Area (command) of General Douglas MacArthur and the Pacific Ocean Areas (command) led by Admiral Chester Nimitz. The potential for interservice rivalry between the Army and Navy created by this partition of responsibility was exacerbated by similar divisions within the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Washington. By September 1944 the two servicea could come to an agreement about the main direction of advance towards the Japanese home islands in the coming year. The Army was pressing for the chief effort to be an invasion of Formosa (Taiwan), in which MacArthur would be in overall command and in which it would predominate. The Navy however preferred the idea of an operation against Okinawa, which would be a mainly seaborne effort. Seeking to gain leverage and so break the impasse, on September 29 Nimitz suggested to Admiral Ernest King that as a preliminary to the Okinawa offensive the island of Iwo Jima could be taken.[2] The tiny island lacked harbors and so was of no direct interest to the Navy, but for some time General Henry Harley Arnold of the US Army Air Force had been lobbying to take Iwo Jima. He argued that an airbase there would provide useful fighter escort cover for the B-29 Superfortresses of his XX Bomber Command, then beginning its strategic bombing campaign against the Japanese home islands (the later role of Iwo Jima as a refueling station for B-29s played no part in the original decision-making process). Arnold's support in the JCS enabled the Navy to get Okinawa rather than Formosa approved as the main target on October 2.[3] At this time the Iwo Jima invasion was expected to be a brief prologue to the main campaign, with relatively light casualties; King assumed that Nimitz would be able to reuse three of the Marine Corps divisions assigned to Iwo Jima for the attack on Okinawa, which was originally scheduled to take place just forty days later.

So, could there have been an amphib invasion of Formosa under Mac's direction instead of against Iwo in Jan 1945 ? What would've been the consequences of such a move on the overall scheme of things in the Pacific ?
 
But Okinawa makes more sense, giving the US a place where they can attack Japan from, so why should they do it? Unless they decided it's more important to liberate the oppressed Taiwanese first...
 

Sargon

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Formosa was probably the least oppressed part of the Japanese Empire. Believe it or not, the Japanese actually ruled there with a reasonably light hand and rather sensibly. Quite a contrast to somewhere like Corea for example....

As for an invasion, agree that it is better for the US to go to Okinawa. Still, Formosa would have made a very good base from which to launch an invasion of the Home Islands.


Sargon

A Timeline of mine: The Roman Emperor Who Lost His Nose
 
Formosa was probably the least oppressed part of the Japanese Empire. Believe it or not, the Japanese actually ruled there with a reasonably light hand and rather sensibly. Quite a contrast to somewhere like Corea for example....

I know this is offtopic, but why didn't the Japanese ruled the Koreans like they did in Formosa if that was the case?
 

Sargon

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I know this is offtopic, but why didn't the Japanese ruled the Koreans like they did in Formosa if that was the case?

Because there's a historical animosity that goes back way further (centuries in fact) between Corea and Japan. For the Japanese, imposing their culture, religion, language etc and the brutal supressions they meted out to the Coreans was a kind of twisted psychological need. Finally, they had conquered the old enemy, and wanted to make sure they understood that fact, and keep them that way if at at possible by stamping down on their culture. With the Formosans, there was not the hatred and desire there to do the same.


Sargon

A Timeline of mine: The Roman Emperor Who Lost His Nose
 
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Hendryk

Banned
With the Formosans, there was not the hatred and desire there to do the same.
I concur. Japanese rule in Taiwan was comparatively light-handed until the 1930s. Perversely, this led to the perception among mainland Chinese that the Taiwanese were collaborators, which explains why the early years of KMT rule after 1945 took the form of a fairly brutal military occupation, and tended to be felt as such by the local population. A slogan of the time was, "The dogs have gone and the pigs have come".
 
"No Iwo Jima" could happen as a gelogical ATL. Iwo Jima is a volcano that grew in an old caldera. Iwo Jima is slowly steadily rising, likely from a magma chanber underneath inflating. If it blew up like Krakatoa, that would complicate matters.
 
It would be a massacre. Picture Iwo/Oki magnified 10 times or more. The island was much bigger, with many more IJA troops, & much better defenses, plus mountains...

Furthermore, the lift to carry it out & support it didn't exist, IIRC. After P.I. fell, it wasn't necessary.
 
The USA would not attack Taiwan because it was too well defended.

A little off-topic, but please do not use the letter "C" to start off the word "Korea." C is so ugly in comparison to K.
It's the improper spelling anyway.
 
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